If the message cannot be found with specific search terms noted in step 3, contact the original sender to ask them to re-send the message.

If you received a Non-Delivery Report, inspect it for any error message or indication of the sending issue, and proceed to troubleshoot using that information; a mail message trace is not needed. Learn more about mail delivery errors in the following document: Office 365 / WiscMail / WiscMail Plus - Understanding SMTP errors.

If you did not receive a Non-Delivery Report, check your 'Sent Items' folder to confirm that you did indeed send the message. If so, send the message to its intended recipient again; a mail message trace is not needed.

If you find the message in your 'Sent Items' folder and send it again but the recipient still cannot find it, then:

Ask them to perform a complete search of their mailbox for the message, and to check their local client and server Inbox Rules to make sure they do not have a rule that would have deleted, forwarded, or moved the message outside of their Inbox.

If the recipient finds the message or confirms it was forwarded, a mail message trace is not needed. Note: If the message was not in the inbox, it may have been moved to another location/folder due to an inbox rule or junk mail filters.

If the recipient is a UW-Madison Office 365 user, and their Office 365 account is configured in any non-Microsoft client, ask them to remove their account from any and all non-Microsoft clients and send the message to recipient again. If they receive the message, then a mail message trace is not needed.

If the intended recipient cannot find the message after trying the above steps, the message may have been deleted. If the recipient is a UW-Madison Office 365 user, have them follow the steps to search their 'Recover Deleted Items' folder: Office 365 - Recover deleted items and recover the deleted message if it's found. If the message is found and recovered, a mail message trace is not needed.

If the message cannot be found or re-sent after working through the above steps, and you would like to request a mail message trace to confirm that the message was actually delivered, please note:

All message trace requests are subject to the review and approval of Office 365 technical leadership.

Only requests to trace messages related to UW-Madison business will reviewed.

Traces cannot be performed on messages sent/received more than 90 days ago.

If you would like to pursue requesting a mail message trace, please contact the DoIT Help Desk and provide the following information:

Sender email address

Recipient email address

Subject of message

Date and time when the message was sent (must be within 90 days)

Important (What a message trace will return):

For a recipient outside UW-Madison's Office 365 environment: it will confirm if the mail server accepted the message.

For a recipient inside UW-Madison's Office 365 environment: it will confirm if the mailbox accepted the message.

In both cases, this process will not retrieve the message.

If a Non-Delivery Report (NDR) was received by the original sender, then request the NDR from the sender. Once obtained, inspect the NDR for any error message or indication of the sending issue, and proceed to troubleshoot using that information; a mail message trace is not needed. Learn more about mail delivery errors in the following document: Office 365 / WiscMail / WiscMail Plus - Understanding SMTP errors.

If a Non-Delivery Report was not received by the original sender, then request that the sender search their 'Sent Items' folder to confirm that they did indeed send the message. If they find the message, ask them to send it to you again; a mail message trace is not needed.

If you find the message or confirm it was forwarded, a mail message trace is not needed.

If your Office 365 account is configured in any non-Microsoft client, remove your account from any and all non-Microsoft clients and ask the sender to send the message to you again. If you receive the message, then a mail message trace is not needed.

If the message is not found via a search in your mailbox, search in your 'Recover Deleted Items' folder and recover the message if it's found: Office 365 - Recover deleted items. If you find and recover the message, a mail message trace is not needed.